A study of boats at Puerto del Rosario, with a background of warehouse buildings

Fuerteventura, Spain, 22" x 15".

The main thing about creating realistic water with watercolour is timing and having soft reflections and hard reflections.  So a large part of this composition is the sea.  I start with a weak colour at the top of the where the sea starts and make it deeper, richer as I come down to the foreground.  While this is still damp, I drop in thicker pigment and a darker colour to make the softer waves - especially in the foreground.  Then when everything is 100% dry I do the boat reflections.  The mast reflections were done with a rigger - straight at first then becoming more haphazard as the come towards us.